The Question Of Visibility.

I've already nailed my colours to the mast in an earlier blog - being a Biker.

Being a Biker means accepting the fact that riding two wheels is more dangerous than driving four wheels. It's just the way it is, and this is the reason I am not longer on 2 wheels.  But I believe this particular Blog is still important, which is why I have updated it.

There are ways to be safer on the road; extra training like BikeSafe Courses, is a very good way. Taking Advanced Training is another. But one of the accepted techniques, received wisdom if you like, is that by having your headlight on during day-light hours, makes you more visible and hence, safer.

I want to challenge this particular thinking because I believe, in some circumstances, it makes the situation worse.

When I started riding a Motorbike in the mid-1960's, the issue of having your headlight on during the day never arose; you didn't have it on. Nobody did.

Then there was a time when you rode with your headlight on but covered with an orange diffuser. This was the beginning of the move towards full headlights during the day. It wasn't questioned because, of course, having your headlight on means you are more visible and so, more likely to be seen, and so.... safer.

However, over the last 2 years, I have been riding a Honda Deauville, and have found that there seems to have been a rise in the number of drivers who pull out on me, particularly, from side-roads. The scale of the problem was that, on a eight miles commute to work (16 miles round) there was a 100% certainty that at least one driver would pull out on me on each leg of the trip journey. When I say 'pull out' I mean a potential collision situation, not a mere nuisance.

This came to a head in April 2010, when a woman in a white convertible pulled out on me, at a bad junction, when I was about 20 feet away. Because it was a bad junction I was going cautiously. So when this half-blind Muppet pulls out, I braked and sounded the horn. She is, by now, completely across my side of the carriageway. At the sound of the horn she visibly jumped and her eyes widen in shock as though I had been suddenly beamed down from the Enterprise. What was even more disturbing was that all the while she had been looking directly at me and my bike. But she simply had no idea that I was there. At least, as I later thought about the problem, I believe she had seen my headlight but had no idea I was as close as I was.

So, why was this? Here is my theory.

A single point of light, which is the Motorbike's headlight, makes the judgement of distance from source very difficult. For example, an experienced road-user, if seeing a car in the distance with its headlights on, has the distance between the left and right light to judge width of the approaching vehicle and therefore the spatial ability to judge distance from source reasonably accurately. This is not true for a single point of light.

Of course, I can hear you say, 'but a motorbike is not just a headlight, it's a large lump of vehicle with a person riding on it,' and of course this is correct. But it is only correct if it can be seen so that road-users can then spatially judge how far away it is because people know how big humans are and roughly how big a motorbike is. But if the headlight dazzles the road-user (even partially) they are no longer able to clearly see the bike or rider and there is then no way for the road-user to accurately spatially judge the distance between them and the motorbike.

I believe this is the problem. So to test this theory, on 6th March 2010 I started riding during daylight hours, with the headlight off. Since that time, on my regular commute, and on other trips, I have covered (to date: 27-July-10) 1025 miles and only experienced 2 pullouts as against an estimated potential 104; an approximate reduction of 98%.

I think that is very interesting.

Of course, there have been studies in America and other countries which suggest that riding with a headlight on is safer. But there never seems to have been a definitive study carried out in the UK, and road conditions and road attitudes in other countries do not translate accurately to this country. Also, headlight positioning on motorbikes is a factor concerning dazzle.

What I have found is not necessarily true for other motorbikes; I can only relate what I have discovered experientially. On these grounds I want to challenge the notion that riding a motorbike with your headlight on is always going to mean that you are going to be safer.

So, if it is not necessarily safer to ride with your headlight on, what can be done to make motorcyclists more visible? Well for one thing, it would help if other road-users learnt to improve their observation. Then the old excuse, 'Sorry mate, I didn't see you', might become a thing of the past.

Co-incidentally, the latest knee-jerk ideology within certain police forces is that bikers need to be more visible and should all wear Hi-Viz at all times.

But it doesn't matter how visible you make yourself if you don't register with other road-users.
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The Death Of Discipline & The Rise Of The Feral Child

On a disturbingly regular basis, newspapers carry horrifying stories of innocent people being attacked, and in some cases killed, by gangs of children roaming the streets without any fear of the forces of law and order disturbing them.

What 'crime' then have their victims committed? Well, they had the effrontery to ask said gangs to; stop vandalising their car, stop kicking their garden fence down, stop throwing bricks at their windows and a miscellaneous catalogue of other anti-social behaviour.

The Police only get really interested if you might, in an endeavour to prevent said anti-social behaviour, touch one of these delicate and fragile youths on the arm or shoulder. Then and only then do the squad cars arrive ready to drag you, the victim, off to the pokey!

How on earth did it come to this? The answer lies in the animal kingdom, which is appropriate in a way, as human beings are constantly being referred to as 'mammal' or 'animal' by various commentators. Ask any naturalist, animal behavioural expert or TV animal pundit how animals deal with the question of disciplining their young and you'll get some very interesting answers. Few, if any of these answers run along the lines of, 'they don't discipline their young, but let them do just what they like'. Ever watch a nature program and seen a mother Lion give an unruly and undisciplined cub a swift clump with a paw? Strange how wild animals instinctively know that discipline, at all levels, is an essential tool for survival, and yet we humans have not only abandoned the disciplining of our young wholesale, but in many cases, made it a criminal offence.

The root of the problem is deeply embedded in the psyche of social engineers, educators and the judiciary, and is both misguided and dangerous. Ask the family of Fiona Pilkington whether lack of discipline is a good thing. Or maybe, if you are still not sure, talk to Helen Newlove, the widow of Garry Newlove, who was kicked to death by a gang of thugs outside his own home.

It is totally unacceptable that the Government and the Judiciary stand back and continue to allow law-abiding members of the community to be terrorised by feral gangs of thugs, whilst they hide behind the familiar mantra of, 'human rights?'.

Our streets are fast becoming virtual no-go zones, ruled by the violent, the feral and the undisciplined.

It is time for the ordinary folk of this country, the tax-payers, the families, the law-abiding, to reclaim our society from the hands of the politically correct and socially delusional 'experts' who, by their misguided and misinformed theories have dragged us to the brink of social decay.

Write to your local Councillor, MP or MEP about what they are personally doing about it.